Prune Your Context Menus

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Before you use ContextEdit for the first time, you should know a bit about the way that Windows manages file associations. File associations determine what actions can be taken with files on your system, based on their extensions. This information is stored in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKCR) section of the Registry. There are two types of associations, which I will call simple and compound.

A simple association uses a single extension key under HKCR. Any subkey of HKCR whose name begins with a period is an extension key-for example, .xls. Shell commands for a given extension are defined using subkeys of this extension key. This is the way file associations were implemented in 16-bit versions of Windows; 32-bit Windows maintains this mechanism for backward compatibility.

A compound association employs at least two Registry keys. The first is a master file type key, which is defined as any subkey of HKCR whose name does not begin with a period-for example, Excel.Application. Shell commands for a given file type are defined using subkeys of the master file type key. Extension keys are linked to the master file type by placing the name of the master file type key in the extension key's (default) value. This allows Windows to associate multiple file extensions with a given master file type, without having to duplicate the command information for each extension individually.

When you activate Explorer's View | Folder Options command and click the File Types tab, Explorer presents a list of document types. This list contains only master file types. Your system may have numerous simple associations defined, but Explorer does not give you access to that information; ContextEdit does. Also, Explorer lists only master file types that are linked to a file extension. This excludes many items, because master file types are also used for other purposes. Because some master file types can lack file extension links due to errors, ContextEdit shows you all master file types.

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